In 2014 the Town of Greenwich was made aware of an encroachment on a portion of the Byram (or Lyon) Cemetery on Byram Dock Street, which terminates at the Long Island Sound shoreline near the border with New York State. Because of the sensitive nature of the site, the Town of Greenwich contacted the Office of State Archaeology (OSA) for guidance.


The cemetery, CT SHPO Site A89.71, is topographically divided into three sections: an elevated upper section immediately east of Byram Shore Road with numerous headstones, a second relatively smaller section called the Lyon Cemetery, and a third section immediately to the east of and below the main cemetery near Byram Harbor, historically called the "Colored Cemetery." It was this unmarked lower burial area, now referred to as the Byram African-American Cemetery, which is believed to have been used as a burial ground by enslaved African-Americans and their descendants. Recent land disturbance to this lower Byram African-American Cemetery by an adjacent property owner included grade cutting, retaining wall installation, rock face removal, and soil stockpiling. Brian Jones inspected these disturbances on August 14, 2014.

The Conservation Commission of the Town of Greenwich initiated the municipal acquisition of the entire, tri-level cemetery parcel in order to protect this significant parcel in perpetuity.

Historical Perspectives, Inc. (HPI) was retained by the town to review the property, monitor the removal of the stockpiled soils, and develop a course of action for investigation and preservation of the entire cemetery, with a focus on specific actions pertaining to the Byram African-American Cemetery. An Archaeology Recommendations Memorandum and more exhaustive documentary study of the cemetery were completed by HPI in consultation with Dr. Brian Jones. No specific deeds directly relating to the ownership of the cemetery were recovered, but there are literally hundreds of Lyon family deeds and many referred to the cemetery as a boundary.

The Byram African-American Cemetery has no headstones and none were reported in 1908 when the adjacent Byram Cemetery was surveyed, which is not unusual at burying grounds used by enslaved peoples or their descendants. Indeed many cemeteries in the Northeast lack such headstones. African traditions transported to the New World often involved placing items of importance on graves, but not headstones; this is a European custom that was not often assumed by the enslaved population. Wooden markers may have also been placed at the site, but no evidence of them remains. Furthermore, there is no assumption of the duration of the active use of the burial ground or that interments were limited to enslaved individuals related to the Lyons and/or Banks family. Free residents of color may have been buried here, too.

The historical record is very clear that the Lyon and Banks families held slaves during the years that they lived in this neighborhood, referred to as Byram Neck, and for the Banks family, this included both African-American and Native-American peoples. It is quite likely that a burial plot was established for this population, which was not an uncommon practice. Thomas Lyon, being a Quaker, and his immediate descendants, may have believed that it was a just and fair thing to do - to provide their slaves with a specific burying ground. Later generations would have likely followed suit.

HPI recommended that the Town permanently protect and commemorate the cemetery. As numerous studies attest to the diminished recollection of slavery as part of the New England historical landscape (e.g., Cruson 2007, Farrow 2014, Mead 1995), the commemoration of the enslaved population and potentially their descendants that lived and died on Byram Neck, is imperative. Further, HPI recommended both fencing and monumentation in a manner that will actively seek to reverse the invisibility on the landscape invoked by the lack of headstones and obvious markers, and to celebrate the lives of so many who worked on the farms and in the houses of Greenwich, and who had a large impact on the creation of the community and the landscape that it is today.

Bibliography:

Cruson, Daniel 2007 The Slaves of Central Fairfield County. History Press, Charleston.
Farrow, Anne 2014 The Logbooks: Connecticut's Slave Ships and Human Memory. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Connecticut.
Mead, Jeffrey 1995 Chains Unbound: Slave Emancipations in the Town of Greenwich, Connecticut. Gate Press, Baltimore.